For all four years of high school, I lived in Okinawa, Japan. I was mostly busy playing Magic: The Gathering at a local card shop but there always seemed to be some talk around me about drifting and street racing. And, for a while, I was content to just play card games.
In 11th grade, a friend took me to watch (very illegal) street racing. It was loud and unique, a huge culture shock from the American military base that I grew up on. I had never really been into cars (or the culture surrounding it) but that first night really changed my perspective. I immediately got into Gran Turismo 2 on PlayStation. I joined the auto shop class, where I helped my friends work on their cars (including a Skyline that we dropped a twin-turbo engine into). Hanging out with people in this car culture was new for me: both exciting and definitely not as nerdy as Magic: The Gathering.
And then I was introduced to Initial D and it all began to make sense: young high school kids in Okinawa were so into drifting because of what they were watching and playing.
Initially, I had no idea that Initial D was an anime, or even a manga. My very first introduction to the franchise was through a game that seemingly had a huge line every weekend at the arcade. It soon became a regular thing to do on a Friday or Saturday night: either you were in line to play or you were crowded around the screen watching the races. Adding to the hype even more, my friend loaned me a couple VHS tapes of the original anime. I wasn’t entirely blown away by the story but the animation and driving scenes were mind-blowing, especially the Hachiroku, the car of the main character and the reason why all of my friends suddenly wanted a car just like it … because it was good for drifting.
When the Alamo Drafthouse announced that they would be screening the first two Initial D: Legend movies (a whitling down of the full series into individual hour-long installments), I was immediately intrigued, bringing up memories of my high school days and the strong smell of gasoline on the Okinawa street. I’m so glad I went to check them out for myself: the animation was still pretty awesome, adrenaline seemingly pumping through the speakers.
The story seems to be the same as what I could remember from those grainy VHS tapes. Stripping down a lot of the pesky character development, these movies went at a quick pace, arriving at racing scenes briskly and often. The biggest change from my high school memories was probably the movies’ soundtrack: great music from the original (now incorporated into memes), had now been replaced and updated with J-Rock. Honestly, though, it didn’t really bother me and I even found myself getting into some of the more catchy songs throughout the runtime. Like the J-Rock, most of the other changes to the original series only added to my enjoyment (with my biggest complaint coming from the lack of screentime for Natsuki Mogi, one of the only female characters of the show. She’s just thrown in as a catalyst for the first drift challenge.)
If you were a fan of the original anime, or even just casually into car culture, these Initial D movies are definitely worth a watch, especially because of the well-animated racing scenes. The Drafthouse will be screening the third installment next month and I will be right back in the theatre to watch it, another night to reminisce on working on my friend’s bright orange Skyline in auto shop and waiting in line for hours to play the arcade game.
Check out the studio’s site for more information on where Part 3 will be screening near you (and if you are like me, you will drive home really fast after the credits roll and start looking on Craigslist for an Toyota AE86 or a Mazda RX-7).
